Trouble In Paradise

The Associated Press offers a surprisingly candid appraisal of the Democrats’ position, as they struggle to do something with their majorities in Congress:

Swept into power by voters clamoring for an end to the war in Iraq, Democrats have seen their efforts falter under a reality more complicated than they found on the campaign trail.
While the public is fed up with Iraq, there is little consensus over what to do.
Internal party divisions, Republican opposition and a president who – while weakened – still appears to have the dominant voice on the war have all left Democrats flailing in search of a way to change the war’s course.
The Democrats’ symbolic measure disapproving of President Bush’s troop buildup passed the House only to stall in the Senate. Their plan to place strict conditions on war funding appears to lack enough support within their own ranks to succeed. Another bid to narrow the 2002 resolution authorizing the war is unlikely to garner the 60 votes it would need to be approved in the Senate.
The first signs of impatience among Democrats’ allies are sprouting.

The AP has a slightly more recent version of the same story here, which buries the account of the Democrats “flailing,” but emphasizes that anti-Iraq war initiatives have stalled in both the House and the Senate. In the House, Nancy Pelosi has distanced herself (wisely) from Mad Jack Murtha’s “slow bleed” strategy, and instead says: “Let me be very clear: Congress will fund our troops.” In the Senate, Harry Reid has shelved, at least for now, a measure to repeal 2002’s Authorization for the Use of Military Force In Iraq.
The Democrats are floundering because in reality, they don’t have a policy on Iraq. They know that the American people’s first choice is victory, but that is the one option that, for them, is not on the table. They would like to surrender, but know that the consequences would be far worse than the situation we now face in Iraq and the Middle East. And they haven’t yet figured out a “third way” that is anything more than a PR slogan. So the drift continues.
Via Power Line News.
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